In his letter to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul warns about choosing teachers and mentors with impressive religious credentials. Spiritual maturity, he says, is not revealed by what he calls "flesh"—education, heritage, natural abilities, and visible symbols like circumcision. Instead, we should look deeper and follow those who may not appear impressive externally, but who have a genuine inner communion with Christ.

Jon walks through six common deflection techniques and two dismissing strategies we too often use to avoid truths that could help us become who God has created us to be.

Continuing our study of the Apostle Paul's view of circumcision, this week focuses on Galatians 6. To perpetuate a popular view that certain groups were inferior to others, some Christians required others to be circumcised. Paul believed this was so contrary to the gospel, and he took the issue so seriously, that he wrote this part of his letter himself with extra-large letters. So, why don't we take discrimination within the church as seriously as Paul did? Why do we passively participate in the prejudice of others?

Generosity leads to God's abundant life by rejecting arrogance, reflecting hope, and redefining wealth.

We all have the potential to be toxic. We have to grow our maturity to keep from creating toxic environments. In this presentation you will learn three types of enemy mode, and how it affects the way we look at people. You will learn the relationship between shame and narcissistic behavior and how Rare Leadership is the antidote to the enemy mode and narcissism that create toxic cultures.

In the first of three messages based on the Apostle Paul's view of circumcision, we look at the common problem of defining our value and spirituality based upon our life circumstances. Too often, we think our relationship or vocational status must change in order to truly experience the Christian life. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul argues strongly that the fullness of the Christian life is available to anyone, anywhere. Therefore, when we think certain circumstances are more sacred or valuable to God, we are missing the gospel and drifting into a dangerous form of idolatry.

Victor Bourtros, Founder and CEO of Human Trafficking Institute shares their inspiring story of working upstream to end global human trafficking of the most vulnerable.

Hypocrites! No one wants to be seen as one. While most people claim to hate hypocrisy, does our hatred of hypocrisy take our attention from more bald-faced sins? And could a certain kind of hypocrisy be a stepping stone away from other sins and toward virtue? Skye dives into hypocrisy and gives the antidotes for twin errors that hypocrisy creates.

Chicago Fellowship Board member and Together Chicago Co Founder Dave Dillon interviews three key leaders from Together Chicago and hearing their life stories. Lavonas Troupe, Charles King and Laprentiss Flowers all have past histories in different "tribes" in Chicago and were on very opposing sides of various conflicts on the streets of Chicago. By God's grace they amazingly all now work collaboratively at Together Chicago to help end the violence on our streets. God has been at work in each of them and we were blessed by their stories and by hearing about the progress that has been made in bringing down the level of violence and by learning more about what the real issues are now on our streets.